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Lisa J. Murphy has written an erotic book with tactile images for that special visually impaired porn connoisseur in your life. Tactile Mind contains explicit softcore raised images, along with Braille text and photos. From the article: "A photographer with a certificate in Tactile Graphics from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Murphy learned to create touchable images of animals for books for visually impaired children. Then she realized that there was a lack of such books for adults only. 'There are no books of tactile pictures of nudes for adults, at least the last time I looked around,' says Murphy. 'We're breaking new ground. Playboy has [an edition with] Braille wording, but there are no pictures.' She says that while we live in a culture saturated with sexual images, the blind have been 'left out.'"

wooshmodded! (That being my term for when someone makes a response to a funny or sarcastic post, misses the point, and in fact restates the joke more obvious or the point without sarcasm, and gets modded higher for it. It seemed important when I started explaining this...)

but i'm going to assume the error in not understanding is yours, not mine, and i'm going reach for the most radical interpretation of what you are trying to say, and then i'm going to take it very seriously, and then i'm going to get very angry

My in-laws are blind. Going to the Louvre and Versailles with them was a fascinating experience. The museum personnel, realizing that they were blind, would lead them (and me since I was leading them) past the ropes, and we would get to go and touch everything. Yes, they got to touch some of the (less famous) sculptures. My father-in-law distinctly groped the boobs on one of the them, which gave us (the guard, me, and my father-in-law) a good laugh. My mother-in-law of course figured out what he was do

The computer science house at RIT is adjacent to the deaf dorm at RIT, the institution being host to these two world class programs. I understand that hanging around the deaf dorm at night is a riot. They don't hear how loud they are.

Or...that example might be simply a case of practical approach; recognizing that the msin reason faces are detailed in "normal" naked photos is...because leaving it that way is the easiest thing to do;p (while here there's some sculping involved)

Leaving aside the fact that I'm pretty sure they don't (just try touching a face and it will not "look" like that), what we perceive and look as beautiful things are just what we know or have heard of. It's wonderful you would categorize them as "creepy".

That's why I used "seems" there; wondering about possibly unsettling (if they would be quite directly brought over) differences in perception. What's wrong with that?

Besides, how are you so certain? You can't just from touching your face or face of somebody who deeply trusts you (which would be the case, you don't have any "excuse" to do that to somebody who isn't quite close) - you not only know that you can go very far in this case, you also have preconcieved concept of how a face looks like.

Speaking of blind people and movies, does anyone know of DVD's (or Blu-rays) for movies other than Moulin Rouge which specifically cater to the blind? For those not familiar with it, the Moulin Rouge DVD has a soundtrack for the blind, where a narrator describes what's happening in the movie.

My friend actually has one! Apparently the Library of Congress makes them as a service for blind people. The thing was just 1/3 of one issue and it was like 3 inches thick! You can get 'em on ebay (or probably from the government, but ebay is easy enough).-Taylor

Blind man walks into department store, reaches down and grabs his Labrador retriever by the hind legs and starts swinging it in a wide circle over his head.Clerk: "what are you doing??!!"Blind Man: "Don't mind me, I'm just looking around"

I ask this question seriously, and from a psychological perspective. We learn as we grow up what the social norms of attractiveness are, do we not? Isn't that why they have meandered and oscillated many times over human history? So then how does a blind person figure out what attractive physical traits are? Uncle Bob can tell little Johnny that girls with big boobs are hot, but if Johnny can't see boobs, then how will he know what that even means*? So what would distinguish between a hot chick and an ugly chick, for a blind person? In particular, much of what makes women attractive (or not) would seem to be things that would be extremely difficult to portray in any tactile way, such as hair color and length, small features of the face/nose/mouth area, and the like. Perhaps I underestimate the sensitivity of a blind person's fingers.

Notice, I am not asking why a blind person would find these sexually arousing. I'm asking how the norms of what is and isn't hot would be established for someone with a limited sensory pool. It makes perfect sense to me that a blind man who's touched boobs before would get off on pretending he's touching boobs while stroking a curved... er... now I know why blind uncle Ted always strokes the arms of his chair like that...

* I assume, of course, that he doesn't go around feeling up everyone he meets in a brute-force attempt to uncover Uncle Bob's meaning

Sex is an instinctive trait. Similarly, a person's attractiveness delves deeper than the eye can see or the (conscious) mind can perceive.

Ever wonder why some dudes that are BUTT ugly manage to get with drop-dead gorgeous women? Some of those guys know how to walk, talk and even radiate qualities that attract women in ways even they don't fully understand. Pick-up artists spend most of their practice tapping these "switches" to either (a) attract/seduce as many (preferably HOT) women as possible and/or (b)

The August 1977 Centerfold [zinegirls.com] [mildly NSFW] was a scratch-and-sniff feature. The cover had a "Surgeon General" white box stating, WARNING: To be smelled in the privacy of your home. Not to be smelled by minors.

"She says that while we live in a culture saturated with sexual images, the blind have been 'left out.'""
Gee, could it be because they are BLIND? Images are, by definition, visual. There is a reason they call blindness a handicap. It is not just that they are too lazy to open their eyes. I can't see three dimensions. I get by quite well, but I don't go to see 3D movies because then I feel handicapped. It is just one thing that one learns to live without.

A photographer with a certificate in Tactile Graphics from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

I hate to poke fun at these serious handicaps, but does one really need to be certified to be able to turn image outlines into crude heightmaps ? Do the people making those raised letters on book covers hold a degree in tactile typography ?

FFS, we did this sort of thing in kindergarten. Chicky needs to get a real job. You want tactile porn ? Go to a strip club. Even blind people can enjoy tits in their face.